$4.3 Billion Fine for Fraud in Exchange Market Manipulations is Pittance for Major Banks

[Jefferson23]

This collective fine for big banks involved in exchange fraud represent less than 1/1000 of the daily transactions in the market says Bill Black, former financial regulator - November 16, 2014

Bio

William K. Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Transcript:

snip* PERIES: So, Bill, is this a major fine?

BLACK: It's not a major fine, but it is the second-largest fraud in the history of the world. So the foreign exchange, roughly $4.5 trillion is traded every day in foreign exchange. Note that that's in a single day, 1,000 times the fine.

PERIES: Alright. Give us some specifics here. What does this particular penalty mean? And will this then be the conduit for more regulation in this area?

BLACK: Well, right now it means business as usual, which means fraud as usual, very weak regulation and nonexistent prosecution. However, they're claiming that there is an ongoing criminal investigation.

So first the regulation, as usual. The major disclosure here is that the Bank of England's senior person on foreign exchange knew that this was likely to be a fraud involving the manipulation by the largest banks of the foreign exchange fix, as it's called, and he knew that at least as early as 2008, and maybe in 2006. But as late as 2012, when the Bank of England was the principal regulator of much of finance, he--well, you have his conversation with banks who were engaged in manipulating and bankers who were engaged in manipulating the foreign exchange rate, in which he said, well, you know, a few years back, what's being done wouldn't have even--no one would have even batted an eye. So that tells you how pervasively corrupt the culture was. But he goes on to say, regulators now, they'd probably not be very favorable to this. But, of course, he made sure that he didn't tell the regulatory staff at the Bank of England that there was this likely fraud.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12660

[KoKo]

1. Recommend. The Fraud Continues...but few eyes are watching...

but Applaud those who are Still On It and Reporting.